Scale of the Problem

Spam continues to be a big problem both for individuals & for businesses of all sizes.  The bad news is that there is now (January 2007) twice as much spam as at this time last year, with spam accounting for roughly three-quarters of all email. And the numbers are quite alarming – an estimated 60 Billion spam e-mails PER DAY.

Source: Akismet.com

Image Spam

There is increasing use of ‘image spam’. Text is delivered in the form of embedded images, & randomization techniques can make every single message appear different to spam filters.  Traditional scanning & filtering technologies are being rendered ineffective.  Image spam now accounts for over half of all spam, & the proportion is growing quickly.

Example of Image Spam

Our strategy

So that’s the bad news!  The good news here at TriSys is that we have recently installed a new server-based anti-malware product known as Microsoft Antigen.  To quote their own promotional material “Microsoft Antigen utilizes a unique multiple engine approach to help businesses improve the detection of viruses, worms, spam, and inappropriate content”. 

Antigen is a state-of-the-art solution that includes no less than nine different scanning engines, including several licensed from other well-known vendors.   Since installation, our Antigen has performed on average 70,000 scans per day; purging over 5,000 spam emails per day, before they reach you, our end users.

Reduce Your Exposure

In terms of practical advice to reduce the amount of spam you receive, the strongest recommendation is to not advertise your email addresses, & have them removed from any websites where they appear.  Web "scraping" of addresses is still an effective tool for spammers.

We appreciate that the above suggestion is unlikely to be taken up by the recruitment industry to any great extent!  However, one clever variant on this is to use the spammers’ own technique, & rather than post actual text of your email addresses, post an image instead. 

Going Forward

The war spam will rage on for some time, as it is a very dynamic battleground.  No one is currently talking about ‘the elimination of spam’; only ways of reducing it or holding it at manageable levels.  A genuine solution will likely involve new legislation, & policies where genuine email has to be ‘allowed in’, rather than the reverse approach of trying to weed out the bad.

We recognise that email is THE essential business tool in the recruitment sector, & that spam is a spanner in the works of that.  We will continue to research the latest developments & products to provide the best overall quality of service that we can.